PurimBurst 1992 / 5752 Sarah Yehudit Schneider Based on a teaching of R. Tsadok HaKohen[1] Even when black magicians cast lots, it is not from belief in chance, in the sense of slipping outside the scope of cosmic influence. Most magical practices—crystal balls, tarot, tea leaves, etc.,—are based upon reading meaning and significance into these “chance” events. They believe that their gods or guardian angels communicate through these apparently random happenings. And so it

PurimBurst, 1993 / 5753 Sarah Yehudit Schneider Sin fragments consciousness, and narrows it. It tunnels vision and disrupts the passage from inner beauty to outer form. Any act whose intention even subtly conceals G-d’s simple oneness and perfect goodness contains sin. Every “thing” and moment, both ancient and modern, has its source in the Torah. The sages ask, “What is Haman’s root in Scripture?” [1] What loosed his energy into the world that it should join the queue of

PurimBurst, 1994 / 5754 Sarah Yehudit Schneider There is a real place that exists right now, on an inner plane, in the mind’s eye of the Creator, where Israel is a righteous nation, and every Jew a perfect tsadik.[1] This is one of two core truths from which all knowledge derives. Every insight (whether personal or academic, whether mystical or scientific) is a logically unfolded implication of these two axioms: God is pure, simple oneness and “there is nothing but God.”[2]

PurimBurst, 1995 / 5755 Sarah Yehudit Schneider Why is this holiday called Purim? Why is it called after the lots cast by Haman to determine how best to kill the Jews.[1] All other festivals are named by a symbol of redemption: Chanukah, for the miracle of oil that burned eight days; Pesach, because death “passed over” Jewish homes, Sukkot, for G‑d’s protective presence, etc. By calling the holiday Purim we enshrine that moment of evil intent as the central theme of the da

PurimBurst 1996 / 5756 Sarah Yehudit Schneider Remember, HaShem, the offspring of Edom…the ones who say [about Jerusalem], “Destroy, Destroy to its very foundation”…Praiseworthy is he who repays [them] in the manner that [they] treated us. Praiseworthy is he who will…dash [their] infants against the rock (Psalms 137: 7-9). To be frank, these verses make me squirm. I cannot face their rage straight on. I am ashamed of their raw hate and want to hide its savage fury under th

PurimBurst 1997 / 5757 Sarah Yehudit Schneider Haman recounted to them the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things wherein the king had promoted him… “Even Esther the queen invited no one but myself to the banquet that she had prepared for the king…Yet all this avails me naught as long as I see Mordechai the Jew sitting at the kings gate [and refusing to bow to me].”[1] In our generation the war with Amalek is an inner war, and Haman’s is th